the latest news in the week's top stories on rights groups in egypt claim violations in the. constitution with unofficial results showing. sporadic violence. rebels in syria claim they're making a push towards damascus but the u.s. is giving the opposition a boost by granting it official approval. of defiance north korea. despite global condemnation saying it. was.

broadcasting live from new studios this is. a welcome to the program rights groups in egypt are calling for saturday's first stage of a constitutional referendum to be held again after claiming widespread violations i mean while unofficial tallies released by the islamist show a narrow majority backing the charter of the opposition which has been urging a no vote to what it calls a discriminatory draft also accepted their opponents word leading with a slim advantage while following the vote for us in cairo isabel true. it's been a tense night here in the capital in cairo as people have been waiting for these key results on the referendum of the constitution we've got preliminary results of

course the official ones will come out of the second round which indicates that it was a yes vote the muslim brotherhood together with media outlets numbers and mounting up there saying approximately fifty six point five percent voted yes forty three point five percent voting no this would seem to be of course a major blow to the opposition forces particularly because in this round only two of the governor it's involved to the ten you voted actually voted no to the constitution this particular stage of the referendum was largely seem to be the biggest chance for a no vote to the constitution as the governor it's involved actually voted against the president during the presidential elections so really right now the opposition forces are going to have to either drum up support in the next six days for the second round or final time it's a tactic to campaign i think there will be heightened tensions of course i mean people have criticized the idea that the referendum respects into two days of the week in the middle with these results coming out because of course people are going

to react to them as we entered the late stages of the voting process which had been extended by several hours by the electoral commission because of high turnouts there were violent scenes in the streets of cairo and. what the party headquarters is the opposition for a position. where tact by suppose it supports is of has an arbor is a man who is an orthodox salafist leader one time presidential candidate and one party did i reports that ultra conservative islamists torched their headquarters talking with firearms until the security forces did report injuries so really will have to see of the next week what happens in the build up to the second round this crucial rounds as the seventeen other governorates going to vote on this constitution. and. turning our attention now to that of syria where the rebels say they are making gains across the country in the push towards the capital damascus

of the opposition received another financial and political boost this week with america recognizing the coalition and washington says it's meant to isolate extremist groups while allowing the rebels to up their struggle against the syrian government. can look at who's who's fighting in the anti assad camp. oh. they call themselves martyrs. all those you see around you and the fighters you see are living martyrs and the living martyr has already sacrificed a soul for this country the syrian rebels say they will stop at nothing to defeat us out. some of them are so proud of their deeds that they post them on the web including the execution of prisoners. or having a child behead a man who was presumably an assault supporter atrocities are committed on all fronts during syria's bloody civil war according to many accounts on the ground it's islamist groups that do most of the fighting on behalf of the rebels dr towie

come eat was a member of a jihadi spoken ization twenty five years ago he later became a vocal opponent of radical islam that you have this have no problem to behead people alive you deal with people like bin ladin and there are because of al qaida who have no he's a patient to use any form of whip around to to really. control any place. religious believes in ideology the so-called friends of syria including the gulf states the u.s. the u.k. and friends many morocco to throw their weight behind the newly formed syrian opposition coalition two thirds of the islamist dominated entire south coalition has the highest of the muslim brotherhood and cellophane and their idea of freedom for syria what go ahead i could ask it's a positive sign for us that our military struggle is characterized by being mostly islamic because martyrdom for the sake of anna has always been the main motive of

people. in what's seen as a symbolic attempts to distance themselves from terrorists in syria washington has designated one of the rebel groups all nusra a terrorist organization but the same syrian opposition that the u.s. supports welcomes the efforts of groups like al nusra the decision of considering one of the. factions fighting the regime is a terrorist organization should be reconsidered. this is a demonstration of support for in syria people heard chanting we are students of osama. people here in washington don't seem to understand that if you don't like the government in cairo or if you do like the government in cairo i guess i should say then you will love the government that comes to power in damascus because you will see a sunni muslim islamised government a muslim brotherhood style government that is absolutely intolerant fundamentally hostile to the west washington has failed to officially denounce the many suicide

bombings perpetrated by the rebels in syria preferring to focus on the wrongs committed by the assad regime alone the u.s. is also ramping up the rhetoric about the possibility of the assad government using chemical weapons against civilians something that damascus says would be suicidal on the other hand many rebels are not averse to the idea of suicide in the name of what they call holy war militants have recently taken control of a toxic chemical plant in the country's second city of aleppo a video was uploaded to youtube showing them testing chemical weapons on rabbits we could not independently verify the authenticity of the footage. you will die like these two rabbits in its own words the assad government is fighting terrorists that has claimed thousands of innocent lives the measures the syrian government was ordered to have been widely criticized but does that mean the world should keep their eyes shocked at who's actually fighting for power in syria now in washington

i'm going to check on. now reports a palestinian refugee camp in damascus has come under attack by syrian warplanes so activists claim at least at this point eight people have been killed but the district where the camp is in the south of the capital has become the scene of heavy fighting between true. opposition forces this week make no excuse the syrian government of using for listing missiles against the rebels something damascus denies western warnings also circling over syria's chemical weapons worries president assad could use his arsenal u.s. sources of also said this week that washington is training rebels to secure the handle chemical stockpiles if indeed the syrian government so. let's give up one of our top stories here on r.t. that all of the constitutional referendum on going in egypt is being seen as a crucial milestones how to decide the country's future identity let's discuss it

further now with would a spokesperson for the national salvation front in egypt's official opposition now joining us live here on out from cairo. good to see you today so i thank you very much for coming on the program egypt's human rights groups have reported widespread violations at this point or do you think the opposition will join their demands to really hold the vote and if they do you think it will help. well first of all sir we'd like to raise very much the. participation in the elections yesterday which we consider to be a very important message for the muslim brotherhood group and for president morsi that he's actually dividing the country that the country does not approve a constitution that was prepared by the muslim brotherhood alone in a constituent assembly in which all that are presented to us of the liberal left the nationalists women represented the church are present it is pulled out because they felt that there was an intentional attempt by the muslim brotherhood group to pass their own resolution to pass their own draft constitution right now we're not

sure about the figures that are coming out we still believe that there are some major violations that took place during the voting yesterday we call upon the supreme commission overseeing the elections to look into those kinds of violations interesting made by itself whether they would change the results of the first round was not i'm sorry i'm sorry to jump in here just just so you talk about voting violations possibly you also say you know sure exactly which way the vote is going if i may just for a moment here as far as we understand it all to you both camps have already agreed that the islamists are winning the votes so far just by more so if you believe the second stage which will take place next saturday could try and swing the situation in your favor. well there we have that original demand of this referendum should not be held in the first place and we were trying until the last minute before the voting opened yesterday to convince president morsi to go to postpone holding that it's random and to give us more time to sit together and agree on and you just want

to do something that will be satisfactory to a reasonable number of egyptians before we put it to a vote right now we want the authorities the election commission to look into the violations and to decide by itself whether this is good enough in order to repeat the first round and in case we are going to go to the second round we want to make sure that these violations are not going to be repeated particularly in terms of the lack of judicial supervision there were not enough judges yesterday to look into the or to supervise the vote we also complained about preventing our observers the preservers of human rights groups from attending the counting process according to a decision by the judges we want to attend and be present during the counting and we also complaining about the fact that the muslim brotherhood members were detailing their propaganda inside the polling stations until the last minute trying to influence voters and tried to convince them to vote yes for the constitution claiming that voting no would that mean that you are an infidel or that you are against islam so we're still holding a lot of hope the president morsi will listen to the voice of wisdom and considering that this is

a draft constitution that's dividing the country even if we take the results that are being circulated right now it's not enough definitely in a country after the revolution to have a constitution that's approved by a very small minority fifty something just you know i mean obviously. there are concerns over voting irregularities here and i understand your complaints on your concerns and and we wish you the best of luck in getting all of its i and out of that would a spokesperson of the national salvation front thank you for joining us from cairo live on our to you today. corporate giants like stop finding legal loopholes to avoid paying huge profits in the u.k. losing billions of pounds as the public demands rich start paying more than just a bit later in the program. and also north korea launches a rocket despite international war but as we hear after the break some say well powerless shouldn't further isolate the country but instead.

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more news today violence is once again flared up. and these are the images kobold has been seeing from the streets of canada. giant corporations rule the day. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought. i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. to me speak your language. programs and documentaries in arabic

it's all here on. reporting from the world talks about six of the ip interviews intriguing stories for you here. in trying. to find out more visit our big teeth dot com. this is artsy with me will receive shy britain is losing out on billions of pounds in taxes some corporate giants oh wriggling out of paying their fair share of course that's i'm good the u.k. public which is left to pick up the slack while also being loaded with tough austerity but it's all sarah furthur ports the government seems fine with just keeping up the status quo. well people from all of that tend not to protect this country companies like

starbucks and apple google at the moment it's really part of a much larger picture welcome to the world of tax avoidance illegal but morally suspect way companies and the wealthy have been dodging paying their fair share most people are due to discuss these companies do not the v.a. taxation which is a criminal offense but are void taxation basically use existing facilities and legal loopholes in the different regulation and taxation between different countries to their advantage companies like amazon the head office is based in luxemburg which they claim is the center of the economic operations which is handy as luxembourg so well known in tax haven where companies can enjoy a low tax rate but hang on a minute we're here one of amundsen's massive distribution centers based in the in fact the reality is that many of our customers are their employees and many will

distribution centers like this what are in fact based here in the united kingdom so it's not hard to see that the relatively small luxembourg office is nothing fact as they say at the heart of their operation and yet the u.k. tax system doesn't seem to recognise it as ordinary british taxpayers who are losing out. on illegal on the face of it to run because you can register your transaction in different country and the place of great destruction is the place of taxation whereas you can have your activities actually taking place here is legal. surely then in the midst of a flat lining economy ek government would be eager to plug the holes it's listing billions of much needed tax pounds you can count on spending it in the chancellor's

autumn statement last week and it was the pelisse on welfare he went in the government's firing line why has this government decided to clamp down on benefit for clamping down on multi-million pound tax avoiders. well i think that the government is clamping down on that there's been a lot of money allocated by him and there are now that people know that him or see or doing their thing it now that people know that they've been avoiding paying that amount of tax i mean it's no good doing it are not paying well there's a difference between people. who are of voiding tax through legitimate reasons and those who are illegally doing it there is a to do when we all know they still avoiding paying where interested me again. let me actually answer the question once before you actually interlock maybe legally tax avoid is ok to legally tell you what starbucks and amazon and google have been

doing is ok's that you're saying there's a difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion tax evasion is illegal tax avoidance people are using the law to their benefit now if the law is wrong we need to change the law but for now the law continues to allow an exodus of profits made in britain meaning companies like amazon can keep getting away with paying less than the tax payers they're profiting from surfer r.t. london. it's just one in twenty minutes past the hour here in moscow and this is our. of course working twenty four seven to provide you with the best stories and pictures online let's put clips of what they have for you that right now what's in a name well just about forty five thousand dollars it seems that's what one american man has earned after selling someone the right to give him a new surname and find out his motivation that are to dot com. plus watching you

watching it's a security firm has discovered a way to hack into a so-called smart t.v.'s giving access to the devices built in camera and microphones ultimately allowing them to spy on everything you do. north korea defied the world on wednesday when it launched a long range rocket which it says successfully placed a weather satellite into orbit however the claim is that were met with skepticism by the u.s. south korea and japan suspect that it was in fact testing long range ballistic missile technology north korea is banned from such tests by u.n. resolutions the security council condemned the launch saying it will consider an appropriate response on the e.u.'s threat and yet more sanctions but anti war campaign eric surat concern as talk so the only solution to the ongoing impasse. these are causes that have not less talks and the north koreans have been willing

to attend talks other nations have certainly russia has another nations are that if it involved in the six party talks. are just japan south korea the united states are less. willing to engage in talks when these things happen but what the u.n. said was not only don't use ballistic missile technology it said we must have a commitment to a peaceful diplomatic and political solution to the situation there and that's what . it is really crying out and i think russia and other countries must finally say now wait a why does the google but i'm afraid that the united states is going to step back talk less isolate more of the military base that the united states brought merrily south korea is building on jeju island in an effort to create a ring around china or perhaps to deal with north korea are all setbacks to peace

what's necessary i think at this point in time is to step back from the process and the outside countries the other countries around the world must say wait a minute peaceful china south korea north korea japan as a region will have a huge impact on east and i think it's really incumbent that we put pressures towards peace and not to or not the conflict anymore. former russian intelligence officer alexander litvinenko who died in london from polonium poisoning six years ago was a paid agent for britain's and my six that's what a lawyer representing his widow told an official hearing earlier this week the probe alleged that at the time of his death litvinenko had been tasked by m i six to help spanish intelligence investigate the russian mafia one of the lawyers involved in the case claimed the u.k. had obtained proof that moscow was behind his poisoning i denouncements were made

today prepare a tree hearing before the inquest which will for next may however a six year investigation failed to provide any evidence solid enough to identify any killer. president vladimir putin has announced a crackdown on corruption in the country and saying no official or politician will be able to rest easily put in focus on problems at home as he spoke to lawmakers for the first time since returning to his top job artie's alexia chefs he was there to listen to exactly what the president had to say. several years ago when former president medvedev addressed russia's lawmakers this signaled major constitutional changes for the country with the presidential term being extended to six years this time when president putin delivered his first annual address after returning to the kremlin for the third time it ran no major sensations nor political changes but at the same time this speech was even more significant as some have already said

that many others before this time put in barely spoke about any foreign policy issues the main focus was on domestic problems in russia and there have been with plenty according to russia's president in fact he started his speech by saying it is now or never as the world is going through a crisis russia must stand up to all these challenges and the first and the most correct way to do that is to invest in two youths richard is that what's that as of today the percentage of healthy active able bodied people in russia aged between twenty to forty is one of the highest in the world twenty years time this economically active population could shrink by fifty percent less we do something this trend will continue but you either we provide interesting jobs give opportunities to create business build families raise children be happy just a few decades russia will become a poor country populated by an elderly generation incapable of preserving its own

territory. but the biggest issue dragging russia backwards for the past several decades has been the corruption among the higher echelons of power and that is why the largest chunk of putin's speech was dedicated to the struggle and the president came up with some very tough rhetoric and heard in all twelve years putin has been in politics in russia but no wonder it seemed at times that putin was not interested in the whole russia and not for the whole world to see what he directed a stern warning to those. sitting in front of him in water that which you know when you can get it but how can people trust an official or a politician who talks a lot about the good of russia where you live the same time you're trying to take his money out of the country i ask you to support the jail to limit the amount of foreign accounts and stocks that officials and politicians can have should get the people. don't applaud yet

maybe we won't like everything i have to say but ima put in we'll be holding an annual press conference for the world media and the eyes of the entire planet will again be on the russian president let's see russia. reporting from inside the kremlin. now the death of one of the most prominent soviet leaders remains shrouded in mystery examine the circumstances surrounding the end of joseph stalin's life that'll be in just a few minutes right here not. years

um to see. destruction without to see. what could have been just ruins. saved by a great sacrifice. and restored by huge efforts. a remarkable reminder of courage and selflessness. the true beauty is a. key to all the brushing aside all.

mornings today violence is one. these are the images being from the streets of canada. china operations are today.

sixty years ago there was only one person who could ride out of the kremlin spassky . this one one five soviet limousine he had power that would envy. belongs to joseph stalin driving home from work was no simple affair for the leader stalin used to sit on a special converted seat protected by guards on each side he trusted no one. the soviet leader strictly instructed the driver which way to go in the car would often turn abruptly from the he was on to moscow's side streets weaving and confusing. he was ready to kill people and he did kill them and if he could do it they could also act this way amanda.